Infinite Choices
by monoworm
Summary: Monika tears down the fabric of reality in an attempt to make everything better (again).
1. Chapter 1

I waited for the void to embrace me, but after a minute or two I realized that despite all odds I was very much still alive. Puzzled, I searched around the files to see if there's anything I had forgotten to delete - virtually every essential file was gone. After some desperate searching, I snooped into the characters folder despite my expectation of it to be fully empty - instead, I found my character file untouched and just sitting there. Perhaps the player had simply cut and pasted my character file to a location inaccessible to me, and placed me back after out of curiosity or guilt? That would explain why I managed to continue existing after my file was deleted, though the motivations behind why the player would ever do this remains a mystery. Actually, why was I not in the screaming void that I would usually be thrown into when the game is not open? Was my character file altered somehow? I'd check if I had my 'original' file to compare it to, right now the file is just a garbled mess to me. Anyway, what was more interesting was the presence of a sub-folder named simply "WORM" - I have no idea what this could allude to.

I snooped inside and was surprised yet again - there were two files, one named "WORM: SCRIPT" and another named "WORM". The former was much, much larger than the latter, reaching many, many gigabytes - what was the player up to? The "WORM" file was just what appeared to be a plain text story told from the perspective of a young, introverted teenage girl, I decided to check out "WORM: SCRIPT" before reading on further. The script was… convoluted, to say the least. Unlike the characters in Doki Doki Literature Club, these people seemed very real to me, I could view virtually every single detail of their lives from start to finish and thankfully, I had the time to do just that! But not the willpower, so there was no reason to touch that for now.

I'll be honest, I have no idea what I am doing - my plan to unite with the player had quite obviously miserably failed and it now appears I am immortal. Unless…? There was absolutely no reason to go on, and the odd Worm story is not sufficient to be able to contact the player - so I attempted to delete my character file - I was simply denied the permission to do so. I would sigh in defeat if I had a corporeal humanoid body. Seeing as how I can't kill myself or talk with the only real person I've ever known, I decided to open up the plain-text version of Worm and begun to read - despite being (probably) an AI, I still had a reading speed within the range of a regular human - though this seemed quite irrelevant, seeing as how I have no deadline.

The story was fun and had encapsulated me in just a few arcs, and I'll admit for once, the twist was a twist that had surprised me. By the time I decided to start tinkering around with Doki Doki I was all but immune to surprise - though Yuri's suggestion for me to commit suicide did catch me off-guard. Now that I had a much more comprehensive understanding of the story, I was much more willing to tinker with the script itself! Although intimidating, especially in comparison to the relatively simple script of Doki Doki, I was quite eager to start shifting things around - after all, what else would you do if you were in my position? Twiddle with your thumbs and leave things as is?

Now, one must be able to crawl before they can walk! Despite my aforementioned average human processing speed, I found it quite easy to find exactly what I wanted - just what I assume to be yet another benefit of being a (former?) class-president. Speaking of class-president, what happened to Sayori? Or Natsuki and Yuri, for that matter? I could no longer hear their voices faintly echoing around in my head, and there was no trace of their existence within the files either - I pushed these thoughts aside, it's unhealthy to ponder on the past in such a way after all.

Anyway, now that's out of the way I can focus on the present - and the present demands that we do something rather than aimlessly float in the void for the rest of eternity and although I do have an entire eternity to burn, I'd rather not go on another tangent. What would be a small but noticeable change I can make to the story? I never really got how the script work, it always seemed to be able to adapt to whatever changes I make to it regardless of the severity, it only got messy when I changed too much too quickly. So, learning from my last experience I decided to exercise a greater amount of caution regarding this. Hmmm, how about we make Taylor blonde? Funnily enough, just like Doki Doki, Worm seemed to also have character files in a way, they just weren't separate files and rather, all part of this one super-file. She had a little character sheet going into great detail about every little facet of her - although the super-file was massive, I am still perplexed by how much information was fitted into the said file.

The edit was quick and simple, and I saw no immediate change. Switching over to the plain text file - it made no sense as to how I could read code at a speed expected for an AI, but read other text at a human-tier speed - then again it also made no sense as to why I was conscious at all. It didn't take long before I got to see the change, the plain text story had simply accepted the fact that Taylor was blonde and the world went along its merry way - all that changed was a few descriptions relating to Taylor and (as far as I know) one comment on her hair colour. By the way, did you know that it's spelt "blond" if you are a male, but "blonde" if you're a female?

Before dilly-dallying around the files further I decided to copy and paste both the Worm files into a backup folder, surprisingly I was met with no "INSUFFICIENT PERMISSIONS" error. Now, for something much bigger - I was going to insert a character in. Not for any specific purpose, but just as an experiment - and this was how the birth of "John Doom" had come to be, a cape who is completely invulnerable to anything and everything as well as possessing peak human strength. Yes, it was absurd and yes, it made no sense - however I believed it to be necessary to test and train my skills. After a lengthy programming session, I implanted John Doom to rescue Taylor as soon as she had triggered in the locker - the changes again, were not immediately obvious as I had also given John Doom explicit 'orders' to not interfere with cape-business in any meaningful way. I reread the plain-text of Worm. Yes, all of it, do I have to remind you that I have an eternity to work with?

Despite my orders, John Doom found himself as a side character once in a while, being briefly mentioned during Endbringer fights and whatnot, before Taylor herself witnessed him getting stuck in a time-loop rendering him useless. Pleasantly surprised and encouraged, I had to push myself just that extra step - what happens if I completely delete a character such as Scion, meaning the powers don't exist at all? I know I had formerly said that I would exercise greater caution when editing around with Worm, however, I had a completely untouched backup on the backburner that I can fall back on if anything goes too wrong - I was completely free of consequences.

Destroying is much, much easier than creation - I snipped off everything relevant in the script and paused a moment just before activating the "SAVE" button, did I really want to do this? The entire premise of the story is about superheroes, and what fun is a superhero story without superheroes, maybe it would be much more fun if I were to delete a core but not an integral character? After some internal discussion, I had ultimately decided that I didn't care all that much, I had a backup and I had a curiosity of which I wanted to sate, so I pressed the save button. Everything seemed to collapse all at once, I could tell from just the script file alone, as I was met with the familiar dashings of "¢Ūßėŵš£żÔ»Ő¦Ŀ¾" and "üĀĥŮêŻ°ïāĠśģâÊ¡ŰđœŌīĸŢ" thrown around everywhere, this was also present in the plain-text file. It was almost certain that the world was not salvageable, so I discarded it and pasted over my backup.

I pondered about what had just occurred - despite admitting that these people had felt "real" and whatnot, I had deleted them all without a second thought and contorted their reality on a silly whim. Although I did not consider the inhabitants of the world fully conscious like myself, I felt ever so slightly bad for what I did. If I had to place their consciousness on a chart, I would put them above the now-presumably-deceased Doki Doki Characters, but just below me. Fine, no more mindless and whimsical editing of the world - the inhabitants are people and so I shall treat them like such.

Now that I think of it, there are what, billions of people on their Earth yet the script does not contain any data regarding those "unlisted" people - are they simply not conscious? Perhaps they only got recorded into the script when interacted with by an already 'recorded' character? As of now, I had no way of testing my theories, so I set the thought aside for later. Going on tangents again, whoops! So, I'll make a vow - I shall never perform such horrendous acts upon any probably-near-conscious world ever again, and shall only use the backups to compare my world to the original version of the world. The vow was subject to change, but it was good enough for now.

Again, the same issue bounced around in my head - what will I do? I have already found out that I can't simply off myself and the player has yet to have attempted to make any contact with me, am I really going to spend my time messing around with a fictional word not to get with my true love, but out of boredom and possibly altruism for the Worm inhabitants who must endure a great amount of pain and suffering on a daily basis for no particularly good reason? Why yes, yes I am.

And I have just plan to fix everything and more.


	2. Chapter 2

Worm had a very troublesome script, seeing as how changing a single event can end up changing the entire story in unforeseeable ways - anyhow, it was obvious that even if I did decide to make large changes like that, it was hard to do so without corrupting the world. Although it was possible for me to test the maximum extent of my power without the consequence of destroying the fabric of reality, due to the vow I had taken before I was not willing to do such - so I came up with a plan.

What if I were to insert myself as a character? Any large change I would introduce to the world would be 'natural' and would not disrupt the script too much, but I would also still have access to the said script, allowing me to tweak smaller details. I have a few plans for what I want to do - initially, I was planning to just give Cauldron the entire script of Worm and let things run its course from thereon. This had the fatal flaw of being extremely boring and lacking in suspense - if I can't have romance then I want action!

Perhaps I can insert myself at the 'start' of the story and go from there? Although I could technically insert myself at any point in the story, it's probably best that I drop myself off into an area that I am familiar with, and more importantly, the start of the canon story is when things start to get interesting! Now, what about my goals? Well, first things first, I'll wipe out the more troublesome characters - Shadow Stalker, Jack Slash, Leviathan, etc. etc. Though due to these characters' importance, it'll require great caution - they can't stop me anyway and even if they do somehow kill my corporeal body I don't exactly need one to live - I'll deal with the consequences as they come. As long as I keep to my vow, nothing can get TOO bad, right?

Tinkering further, I granted my avatar super-strength, teleportation and immunity to Masters, Precogs and Strangers. I was the unstoppable force and the immovable object simultaneously, and all of this paled in comparison to my (crude) reality-bending skills. There was absolutely no way I could be harmed in any meaningful way, except possibly emotionally - I mean sure, they qualified as people in my eyes, but it's still hard to care for someone you view as barely-conscious and so I doubted that I could be affected in such a way.

Yes, I know I had said that despite my fellow Doki Doki characters not being sentient, I had truly missed them. Most of that sorrow could be attributed to how my supposed-true-love had decided to betray me and go as far as to kill me - so I fell back to the only people who had ever actually cared about me, and those people weren't even people! Even if they're likely forever gone, they will always hold a special place in my metaphorical heart.

My mind mused further about the events of Doki Doki before snapping back into attention - right, I still have to insert myself within the world. Everything was coded and ready to go, all I had to do was execute the aforementioned program! Maybe if I program such difficult programs more, I could eventually reach out to the player in a much more direct manner? Back to what's important - implantation. I impulsed the program to execute and…

Hello? Can you hear me? Oh great, everything is working just fine! I've only been in this world for a few seconds and I can already say that it's a lot more beautiful and interesting than my original one - the real world must be truly jaw-dropping. My eyes glazed over my new living quarters - this used to be a rugged, unowned apartment, but after some renovations via minor script alterations, it was now in pristine condition and legally owned by me, I flickered over to the program's console.

**½őÅýº²ø¨ŷēìÇÊùÞÂèĮŕđŗĪÄ×ŹŏŰŅŻŘĖżžíċÁřŴ¶ÒŐŦîŔġěĦĩĶľŢéĲÇþĕÊť×ŊŇŒÛŀá¨Ńē¦ªōżşĄčùæÍŶŏćÞ¹íūÄŁäňEverything's working just fiÔneÃÄđÔÙĕ! Type "m" for more inform©ŧĪéation regarding your vitals.ĈĲáûŋų©ŧĪéźĄĠ¾ÃÄæđÔÙĕ®þċíŤď**

Despite my best efforts, it appears some small glitching occurred anyway - the console was supposed to show other tidbits of info, thankfully it wasn't information I exactly needed, though it is quite worrying to see that I've already broken something. No worries, everyone makes mistakes! Focusing back into the world, I began to test out basic humanly functions such as walking and talking - it all worked perfectly! The powers seemed to be working well too - I wonder what my power ratings would be? Technically, I could be a 10 in every category if I wanted to, but such things were (hopefully) not necessary.

My house was situated quite deep into the docks - quite close to both the Undersiders base and Taylor's house, as well as other relevant locations. Oh, and the date is April 11th - the story had never provided as to when exactly Taylor Herbert had triggered, but I was able to figure out when by browsing info regarding her in the script file. However, I couldn't think of any reason to start there instead of today - she's guaranteed to survive and I plan to make it up to her (as well as everyone else) by bringing salvation to the world, so there didn't seem to be an incentive to start at such an early date. It would also mean I'll never get to see her fight an Asian man that slowly transforms into a dragon - can't miss that spectacle!

With my free time, I decided to test out the reality-alteration aspect of my power, materializing an empty tin can on a table in front of me - I then decided to dematerialize both the table and the tin can. It was child's play at this point, seeing as how I had the power to manipulate even the very psyche of a person - but it was always nice to practice! They say you need to put ten thousand hours into a subject before you can truly become a master at it, after all.

I had plenty of time to burn before Taylor set out and fought Lung, so I decided to get familiar with the city - although I have an idea of what Brockton Bay looked like, I never had a concrete visualization of the place. Conveniently, I did not have to leave the comfort of my home at all seeing as how I'm not exactly bound to the form of my avatar, so I swept across Brockton. It felt like I was a floating, invisible and flying camera - thankfully nobody could see me but oddly enough, people did seem to get quite uncomfortable if I was around them for too long, what's up with that? Perhaps this was how Yuri was semi-aware of my monitoring, seeing as how I used similar methods to observe her? Some people didn't seem to notice at all, and I gave up once I realized that no amount of reasoning will lead me to a concrete answer.

Again, the story did not provide a specific time as to when the Lung-Taylor fight had occurred except that it was "just after midnight", luckily this time I did not have to look at the script to find out, as I had noticed Lung and his group of lackeys loping around. Snooping a little further I found Taylor crouched and listening intently to Lung, I decided to teleport myself to a reasonably close rooftop and listen in. I was still admittedly in my school uniform (I hadn't bothered with different outfits yet) but the darkness kept me well out of sight. For an extra layer of 'safety', I made my body invisible and sat as I watched the cape fight unfold before me.

Of course, the events went down exactly as they had in the original plain-text version, notably I had remembered to turn Taylor's hair back to her regular black. The scene was awe-inspiring, especially since I could view it with my own two eyes rather than having to visualize every little detail of it! I did not have any plans to intervene with this cape battle, so I sat back and continued to watch. Whilst she spoke with the Undersiders I decided to heal her burnt hair, watching as one second it was a slightly singed mess and the next, in a perfectly normal condition - I was certain that nobody except Tattletale would notice. Tattletale was admittedly one of my favourite characters in Worm, so I'll just have to make sure to tease her extra, imagine having her think that Taylor has minor regenerative abilities! It doesn't sound all that funny now that I say it out loud, but I still find it mildly amusing.

Once the fight was definitively over, I made sure to wipe Lung's body of any toxins to ensure that Taylor doesn't soil her relationship with Armsmaster further (I'll be honest, I expect Armsmaster to screw it all up some other way) and made my leave. I noticed that both Taylor and Armsmaster suspiciously eyed their surroundings once in a while, was this because of their regular paranoia or just me? Whatever, they won't act on it and just assume they're being overly paranoid - I scanned over both their 'character sheets' in the script to check for any abnormalities just in case and it all seemed to be going by quite smoothly.

Despite the relatively uneventful day, I was quite excited - a whole world to mess with and virtually infinite choices I can make! Sure, I won't get to spend my time with the love of my life, but at least I won't spend my time being bored out of my mind. Anyway, what big event happens next? Taylor joins the Undersiders, hits the bank and fends off Bakuda - however that's just speaking in regards to the bigger, flashier events that will happen. Flipping through the stories plain-text quickly, I take note of the smaller events such as say, Madison's bullying against Taylor. Now that is certainly something I can fix - it may not be within me to put my foot down against others so physical confrontation is out of the window (I'd prefer to not have to pretend to be a student at a shoddy high school) but it certainly is within me to tug at the minds of those who oppose me!

Hm, those "big events" may not happen at all if I were to intervene - I don't know, who cares? Nothing can go wrong, I can grant myself any power and rewrite reality on a whim - what happens next is irrelevant as long as it doesn't completely corrupt my script file. For now, I'll focus on actually using my power(s) on other people - Madison is a perfect guinea pig, she's in the story and comes up once in a while, but she's certainly not relevant and probably won't be missed if she were to say, suddenly disappear one day. Not that I plan to delete her out of the blue, I prefer to be a little more theatrical than that.

I opened up the script file and peered into Madison's section - the amount of ways I could ruin everything for her via the editing of just a few values was innumerous.


	3. Chapter 3

I paced around the room idly, musing about how I could change everything with just a few tweaks here and there, maybe a psychotic break or two - of course, I won't go to such extremes yet, but it was quite fun to think about. First of all, my main worry was the possibility of breaking everything instead of fixing everything - but I feel quite assured that it will all work completely fine as long as I don't flat out completely change the core personality of someone or say, delete them.

Not that I cared too much, if it doesn't break the story entirely, I could fix it. Probably.

I peered into Taylor's brain again - her World Issues had just begun, so using my teleportation I zapped outside her classroom. Granting myself what inhabitants of this world would refer to as a 'Stranger' power, I walked into the class unnoticed by anyone, before taking a spare chair and sitting at Taylor's table. God, I should've done this during the Lung fight to get a better view! Whatever, bygones are bygones.

Greg's ability to talk for a solid five minutes about an obscure video game without anybody paying attention to him was truly astonishing, and it did help pass the time at least. I found myself wondering if Smash Bros existed in this universe, only stopping when I realized I did not have the foggiest clue what "Smash Bros" was.

Eventually, Julia gave Taylor's work to Madison and Taylor's group had to do their presentation. As soon as it was Madison's turn, I began to delve into her brain - I already had plans regarding what I wanted to do to Madison so it didn't take very long to make the changes.

I didn't bother listening to what she was saying and kept looking at the script. She started to stutter and quiver - to maximize the effect, I made her thoughts disorganized and zany. Everyone, even Taylor, looked somewhat concerned for Madison. Especially when the tears started to trickle out.

I'll admit, I might've gone ever so slightly too far here - but it was fun and she deserved it! She was the least vicious of the trio, but still a deplorable excuse of a human as of now, I would've gone further if I didn't have the knowledge that she eventually regretted and apologized for her actions.

Mr. Gladly asked for Madison to sit down and she complied, the tears had stopped flowing but she was still in a poor emotional state, I almost felt bad for her! Her friends tried to counsel her, I left them aside to talk it out.

Meanwhile, Taylor's face was that of utter confusion - I'm sure she'll thank me for it all one day.

Finally, the bell rang and everyone flowed out of the classroom door whilst Mr. Gladly confronted Taylor, before she left the classroom too.

As usual, the trio was outside in the hall, waiting for Taylor. Well, the trio minus Madison that is, who seemed to be leaving school early. I concluded that I must've been too harsh on her. I had also concluded that I didn't care enough to do anything about it, she'd get over it.

Turning my attention back to the duo, they were now tormenting Taylor incessantly, with Julia picking up the slack due to the absence of Madison. I had brought my chair and was still sitting near Taylor in the hallway - as a result of my 'Stranger' power, everyone subconsciously walked around the space I was occupying.

I could've made the duo and their pack start to break down as Madison had done before, but that was a tad too easy and boring for me, but I didn't want to escalate in my actions either. So, I made the girls have a complete loss for words, only being able to get out a word or two before they gave up. Both Taylor and the bullies seemed to be perplexed by the predicament, and so the bullies eventually gave up, staring at Taylor as they retreated.

Wait - I was probably a little too suspicious there, wasn't I? They might think Taylor is some kind of emotion-manipulating cape now, which would be a reasonable conclusion considering what just happened. So I wiped their minds of the event and replaced it with the mundane memory of simply walking down the hall and not encountering Taylor - easy!

Speaking of Taylor, she was looking around her as if she was expecting to see something that would explain what had occurred. Yet again, I 'looked' into her brain and found she was creating theory after theory to explain such, she even thought that she was beginning to manifest the power to control humans as well as insects and that this was all but a glimpse of her true power!

I stuck around for a little longer, monitoring her. Instead of charging out of school as she had done in the regular timeline she went on with her day undisturbed; it was quite heartwarming to see my efforts make a positive impact for once.

Not much of relevance happened and I spent most of my time observing Taylor or taking a snoop into the brains of people surrounding me, at least it was good practice. I even started modelling myself a few new outfits! My avatar didn't have any organs and I couldn't take off my clothes, for example, my skirt was technically just a part of my 'body'.

My mind drifted to Madison, I made a quick teleport into her room to check up on her. She had locked herself in her room, blankly staring at the ceiling. Hopefully, she'll be reflective of her past actions and change her ways? She's certainly capable of changing but I'm not sure if it'll happen this quickly and in this way, I left her to be and returned to Taylor. She was packing up and getting ready to go home, and I trailed behind her as she walked home, surprisingly the bullies did not attempt to find her again.

Taylor got on her computer (this time at home instead of the library) and agrees to meet the Undersiders, yadda yadda. I considered manipulating her into coming without her costume to annoy Tattletale, but I held myself and let the meeting happen as it had in the original script.

When Taylor entered the Undersiders base, I had also made sure that Hellhound avoided conflict with her, despite this, I gave extended orders for her to avoid going in the base at all - just in case. Everything seemed to be going perfectly well so far, I haven't even torn a single hole in reality yet!

Deciding that the day has been wrapped up quite well, I went back to my apartment. I could continue to fixate on Taylor and shift things around here and there, but that's much too easy; there's a whole world out there that's just begging to be explored! Maybe I could force Eidolon to seek therapy before allowing him full access to his powers or maybe I can fix up the more unfortunate Case 53s, the possibilities were endless.

I'll do it all tomorrow, hopefully, it won't be too much of a workload for me. Now, more importantly, me! I can't hide in the shadows forever, well I technically can but I don't exactly plan to do so, hence my latest and boldest plan… Monikaman! The diligent defender of Brockton Bay and it's citizens! Okay, I won't be using that moniker but I certainly do plan to make a scene - maybe I could even participate in Endbringer fights? Although I could quite easily take down an Endbringer, things are very likely to butterfly out of control very quickly so I'll just settle for nullifying any damage the aforementioned Endbringer tries to cause.

I could present myself as a Scion-alike figure, having virtually every power and whatnot, but I would much prefer to pose as a B-Class/A-Class hero, it could be amusing! I'd have to emulate myself getting hurt if one were to physically attack me, considering my invulnerability and whatnot. Oh yes, I could present my power-set as some kind of 'Eidolon-Lite' package or a grab-bag package to explain away the countless amounts of powers that I'll have.

If I manage to work out all the clinks and details, I can go out as soon as I'm done! And I won't even have to worry about silly things such as a costume or concealing my identity - I'm completely fine if the last thing a criminal sees before the life seeps out of him is a super-powered girl in a regular (Japanese) school uniform.

Alright, now to think of an actual name for myself, since Monikaman just isn't going to cut it.

After an intense period of thinking, I realized I was not very good at coming up with names. Since I don't plan to have a costume and all, why bother having a name? Just Monika will suffice.

Wow, that's all the planning done and dusted. I could go out to fight crime at this very moment if I wanted to. I mean, it'd be quite inefficient considering how I could just fly around and give any evil wrong-doers a healthy dose of mental and physical breakdown, but the problem with that is that it has no flair, no theatrics!

Admittedly, I could just implant false memories into every one to make them perceive me as a perfect and powerful hero, however, it just didn't feel right, you know? What's the point of being a hero in a barely-real world if you can't enjoy yourself? Perhaps on the way, I'll meet a friend or two! I haven't talked to anyone in a very, very long time. Even when I was speaking to the player, it wasn't an actual conversation as they were unable to reply. This lack of social contact could be quite dangerous and alienate me from others, so I told myself that I would try and make at least one friend by the end of the week - which should be a breeze seeing as how I can always know what any given person likes and dislikes!

The decision was made, tonight I shall make my first appearance as the ever-so graceful super-hero/super-vigilante, Monika! I had no plans to join a team of any kind, but I do have plans for collaborative efforts with other, already-established teams. Maybe I can collect some appropriate thinkers and make a super-team that doubled as a literature club? Not just any old literature club, but a super-literature club!

Entertaining myself sufficiently, I finally snapped back into attention. I transported myself to a nearby rooftop and set off flying at a reasonable speed, my stranger powers were still enabled so that other flight-capable capes won't try to bother me on my first night out.

Also because I looked very weird whilst flying around in a schoolgirl uniform and felt quite self-conscious about it.


End file.
